Mom 101: Shirt a l 'Orange

Ok Shanna, you knew this was coming. Here's an old family favorite:

Every year, our family participated in the Joy School Halloween party. Joy School was the home-based preschool that we did for ALL the preschoolers in our family starting with the oldest right on down to Shane. Our Joy School group consisted of 5 or 6 families with preschoolers the same ages as each other and the moms took turns teaching the fun little lessons: Joy of the Earth, The Joy of Interest and Curiosity, The Joy of Obedience and Decisions and a favorite of mine--The Joy of Spontaneous Delight. If you have preschoolers I highly recommend it.

Back to the Halloween Party. The kids were all dressed up in their Halloween costumes and we were at the home of one of the Joy School families. The kids had a great time showing us their costumes in the "Halloween Costume Parade" and were busy decorating jack-o-lantern cookies with orange frosting and LOTS of candy corn and orange and black sprinkles. Scott was a lion, Siara was a butterfly and sweet little Shanna was a cute little kitty. The kids had pretty much free reign with the goodies while the parents were visiting. I wasn't doing my usual regulation and supervision. Classic mothering mistake.

After awhile, Shanna came over to where I was chatting with one of the other moms and said "Mom, my tummy hurts." I leaned down to assess the situation and in that instant, she regurgitated all of the bright orange frosting, candy corn and sprinkles that she had in her little tummy right into my shirt.

Yes, the act of leaning over had caused the top of my shirt to gap in just such a perfect way that it acted like a scoop and took in all of the barf.

In that moment I was actually glad that none of it had hit the floor. The thought of orange stains on my friend's carpet bothered me more than the warm, squishy, goo running down my chest.

I held tight to the waist of my shirt so nothing would drip out and rushed Shanna to the bathroom, while calling out to husband and kids:

"Time to go--get your jackets. Honey, grab the diaper bag would you?"

I wiped Shanna's mouth and had her stand by the toilet to make sure it was all out.

Don't worry, it was all out-- and right there in my shirt.